I can understand why this book is so polarising. Firstly the writing style is not for everyone, myself included. The way dialogue is written is a little off-putting and sometimes I’m genuinely confused as to whether what I’m reading is dialogue or not. Speech marks are useful, I hope omitting them doesn’t become a trend.

The characters are interesting but they also feel hollow. I can’t quite put my finger on why but occasionally I’ll read a book where the characters feel like they were given exactly enough description to exist within the book. No more and no less. I couldn’t imagine these characters doing anything else outside the book itself, they were built to serve this purpose and nothing else. That’s the vibe I got from the two main characters in this book. There are also pages in this book where Marianne is described that made me physically cringe. I distinctly remember Rooney writing thatMarianne would read news stories and then spend hours researching the biases of the journalists who wrote them. Really, for every news story? It’s not that someone would never do this, it’s more that it comes across as a forced attempt to make your main character seem like not-just-another-girl.

This book doesn’t have much of a plot, it’s mainly based around the relationship between the two main characters and their development – or lack of – over the course of the story. It’s horrifying and charming and genuinely compelling at times. There are lots to like with this book, I don’t judge anyone for giving it five stars and saying it was their favourite book of the year. There’s just so much that pulls me out of the story that I can’t honestly give this above three stars.